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The ace who shot down an American plane to save it
On the record
Louis Edward Curdes was born in Fort Wayne on November 2, 1919 — an archival catalog at the Museum of Flight gives June 11, 1919 instead — and grew up in the city, graduating from North Side High School in 1938; he was studying engineering at Purdue when he went to war. Flying P-38s in North Africa and Italy, he became an ace within his first month of combat in 1943; shot down that August and captured, he escaped and reached Allied lines. He is one of only three American pilots credited with shooting down German, Italian, and Japanese aircraft — seven Messerschmitt Bf 109s, a Macchi C.202, and a Mitsubishi Ki-46. On February 10, 1945, over the Philippines, he deliberately shot down a lost American C-47 transport to keep it from landing on a Japanese-held airstrip; everyone aboard survived, and Curdes received the Distinguished Flying Cross for the episode. He held two Distinguished Flying Crosses, the Purple Heart, and fourteen Air Medals. After the war he served in the Air National Guard at Baer Field, retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1963, and died on February 5, 1995; he is buried in Lindenwood Cemetery.
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- § 06 — people of the record · famous-people supplement
Sources: American Fighter Aces Association; The Museum of Flight (archival and oral-history records); Together We Served (service profile).